The bar was called The Drunken Goose.

  Dim light. Filthy tables. A floor that tugged at your boots. The place reeked of fried grease, cheap rotgut, and old smoke. The music was a bastard blend: synth rock welded to metal, then, because this district loved its irony, an old “Republican” flourish of organ pipes and a choir dragging everything toward a hymn.

  They came in together.

  People clocked the gray cloaks at once and the room tightened. Someone looked away. Someone else finished their drink too fast and suddenly remembered an urgent appointment somewhere else.

  Wilt Norcutt went first. She paused just inside the door, letting her eyes travel over the bar, the corners, the hands on tables.

  Captain Goodman kept a half step behind her. He hated it here. He hated everything that had started after docking.

  Lothar von Finsterherz entered last. He did not look around. He walked in and stopped against the wall near the exit, like he had picked his position before anyone could decide for him.

  Norcutt crossed to the counter.

  “I need information on Adam Graff.”

  The bartender was lean, face worn raw by years and bad air. He polished a glass with the bored patience of a man trying not to hear.

  “Never heard of him.”

  The female inquisitor set an Inquisition token on the bar. She did not toss it. Just placed it there, quiet as a verdict.

  “You have.”

  The bartender swallowed. His eyes flicked to Nightingale, then down to the token, then back up to her.

  “Lots of people come through. I don’t keep names.”

  Norcutt leaned closer.

  “I’m not asking for everyone’s name. I’m asking for one. Was he here?”

  A beat. Then the faintest nod.

  “He was. Not often. Once for sure. Maybe twice.”

  “With who?”

  “Alone.” He hesitated, like the next part tasted worse. “But after that a girl started coming. Looking for him, I think.”

  Wilt’s brow lifted.

  “What girl?”

  “Not local. Clothes are expensive, but she doesn’t show off. Doesn’t talk much. Always takes the far table. Doesn’t drink. Orders something hot. Leaves fast.”

  “How often?”

  “Every couple days. Sometimes more. Like she’s waiting.”

  “Is she here now?”

  He nodded.

  Norcutt straightened and said calmly, loud enough for the whole room to hear, “Everybody stays where they are. Bar’s closed.”

  Someone gave a nervous laugh that died in their throat. Two men rose like they meant to head out, saw Nightingale, and sat back down without finishing the thought.

  Wilt turned to Finsterherz.

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  “Seal it. With your field. No one slips out.”

  Goodman drew a sharp breath.

  “Inquisitor, that’s”

  Wilt did not even look at him.

  “Quiet, Captain.”

  He gave a small nod and raised his hands.

  The air changed immediately, pressure creeping up as if the ceiling had lowered by an inch. Ears popped. The bulbs above the counter stuttered. Hookah smoke stopped drifting and hung heavier, as if the room had thickened.

  Along the walls, a dull outline moved. Not light exactly, more like a sensation, a line your skin could feel. People flinched. Someone swore. Someone else pressed a palm to their temple.

  “Don’t jerk around,” Lothar said, voice level. “It’s safe if you stay calm.”

  Wilt moved toward the back tables. Her gaze hopped from face to face, hands to pockets, shadows to corners. She was looking for the girl.

  Or for whoever was using her.

  And then the field twitched.

  Not from outside.

  From within.

  Finsterherz froze. He sucked in air and staggered, eyes going wide. For a second he was not looking at people anymore. He was seeing something else entirely.

  Lothar’s face twisted.

  “No,” he rasped.

  Something tore through him from the inside out. Lothar clutched his head. His teeth clicked. A groan broke loose, then a scream, hard, full throated, so loud it drowned the music.

  Chairs scraped. People shot to their feet. Someone fell. A man lunged for the door, hit an invisible wall, and bounced back like he had run into glass.

  Lothar kept screaming. He could not stop. As if something had sunk hooks into his brain and was pulling.

  The female inquisitor snapped around, already understanding.

  “Graff.”

  The field shuddered again. For a fraction of a second the room dropped into a cold pocket, an icy hollow cutting through heat and smoke like a blade.

  Lothar’s breath punched out of him. His eyes rolled back. He folded to his knees and tipped onto his side. The pressure along the walls loosened, but it did not vanish, more like it clung on by instinct, running on whatever was left.

  Goodman rushed to him.

  “Lothar!”

  Wilt did not move. She stared at nothing, at the empty space where you would swear someone was standing if you looked the wrong way.

  “He’s here,” she said softly. “He just didn’t show his face.”

  Nightingale took a step forward.

  “Orders?”

  Wilt’s fingers curled, slow.

  “No one leaves. Turn the place upside down. Find the girl. Alive or dead, I don’t care.”

  Her eyes cut to Lothar’s body on the floor.

  “And get him back. We need him. Even if he hates me.”

  The Drunken Goose fell into a different kind of silence. The music was still playing, but nobody heard it anymore. People sat where they had been told, staring at their drinks, at their hands, at anything that was not the gray cloaks. The field still held the bar. The door was right there, close enough to touch. No one could reach it.

  Goodman knelt by the wall with a flask, trying to force a response, but it went nowhere.

  Wilt did not pace. She did not fidget. She watched the room like it was a diagram.

  Then, from the far corner, the girl stood.

  She did not hurry. Hood low, hands empty. The patrons shrank into themselves.

  “Too late,” she said.

  The female inquisitor did not blink.

  “You’re his runner.”

  The figure stopped. Turned its head. In that moment the air tightened around throats. The field trembled, as if someone had pressed down on it from above.

  The hood slid back on its own.

  Not a woman.

  Not that posture, not that walk, not that gaze. Whatever was masking him peeled away, and a man stepped into the light, mid thirties, tall, built like a soldier, handsome in a way that felt like an insult. Clean face. Calm smile. Like he had shown up for a scheduled meeting, not a trap.

  “Well, well,” he said. “Wilt. You really don’t quit.”

  She drew and fired without warning. Nitrogen rounds slammed into his chest and shoulder, frosting his clothes white with rime.

  He did not even take a step back.

  He just lifted a hand.

  A tail unfurled around him, nothing organic, nothing “real,” a dense arc of light with the weight of metal. It coiled into a ring and sealed him off. The bullets shattered against it and clattered to the floor as brittle ice.

  “You know better, kid,” he said, almost gentle. “That won’t do it.”

  His gaze shifted to Finsterherz on the floor.

  “But that little brat? I’m taking him. All of it.”

  He spoke in Draconic, short, clean, like stamping wax onto paper.

  “Man dabi tva az tva migiram.”

  Norcutt’s jaw tightened.

  “You’re here for what he knows.”

  His smile widened. He looked straight at her, as if enjoying the symmetry.

  “And now, go.”

  The next word came out different, sharper, wrong edged.

  “Na ekek!”

  No flash. No spark. The air itself hit Wilt like a boot to the chest. She flew back half a step and slammed into the wall. Tile cracked. Something in her ribs gave a sick, small crunch. She slid down, still gripping the gun.

  Nightingale started forward, then stopped, caught by the field the same as everyone else.

  She lifted her head. Her eyes were furious, clear.

  “Even the words,” she breathed, “in that cursed language… they carry power. Monstrous power.”

  He tipped his head, as if listening to a tired joke.

  Wilt forced herself up to one knee.

  “But you’re a coward, Graff. You never opened yourself to it. You hide behind it like a shield.”

  The warmth drained out of his expression. The smile left without a trace.

  “And you still think that’ll save you?”

  Then he turned back toward the fallen mage.